"I Missed My Stop to Catch the End of CSI"

Published on February 23, 2005 By Gideon MacLeish In Current Events

Atlanta's rapid Transit system is adding TV's to its rail cars.

The TV's will be preprogrammed to Atlanta's ABC affiliate or one of three on train channels for riders to view. Riders will be able to hear the broadcast through FM radio with headsets. The cost to the transit system in this case is nonexistent; in fact, they will MAKE money through advertising revenue.

So this is a good thing, right?

Well, aside from the fact that TV seems to lower IQ, at least from my own empirical observations, is the fact that riding public transportation is one place where it's probably best to be alert. A train packed with rush hour commuters is a fertile field for aspiring pickpocketers to begin with; when every eye is turned to the nightly news, it only adds to the theif's ability to practice their craft. Then there are problems with boarding and deboarding the train. I can't imagine it being too terribly fun to work my way past someone who's glued to the latest hollywood scandal. On top of all that is the very real poosibility of missing one's stop due to inattentiveness.

All of this to make the subway ride more "fun". Go figure.

Comments

Danny Bassette

on Feb 23, 2005

And here I thought the point of a transit system was to get you from point a to point b as quickly (and safely) as possible. But it's really about entertaining you? Maybe I should use the subway more

chiprj

on Feb 23, 2005

The newer subway trains in Seoul have screens in them (so do the stations, but there, they run nothing but commercials). They play short shows (maybe 15 mins in length or less for the most part) or commercials. At any given time, no more than about 25% of the riders pay attention to the screens, though.

My favorite would be when they do a short broadcast discussing proper and improper language usage. They run short scenarios and show how the common Seoul-ite misuses the language and what the proper word/grammar should be. I always learned something.

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